The political and media furore over chants at Glastonbury by Bob Vylan, a British punk duo has me reeling at the moment. I couldn’t get my head around it at first, why I was feeling such anger at this condemnation of their chant? At first I was thinking it was because this group are black and I felt it was racism again raising its ugly head. But then Kneecap is getting condemnation as well for ‘hate speech’, ‘inciting violence’, an Irish hip-hop trio from Belfast. I’m not saying that the Irish has not experienced their own form of racism, prejudice and discrimination either.

But then when I saw the newspaper headlines, and then the Prime Minister coming out say it was ”appalling hate speech’ wanting an investigation in the BBC and how they could allow this to happen, with criminal investigations being filed against both Bob Vylan and Kneecap, I realised why I was getting angry and really enraged. It was because there was all this disgust and moral hand whinging and condemnation of a chant, but not the same level of condemnation and rage and move to stop it for the genocide happening in Gaza, right now, or for the last 1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks and 4 days. As the Palestinians continue to be exterminated by Israel Defense Forces (IDF), there is no condemnation, not opposition from the UK government, the media, those in business, those who are showing again and again that they are controlled, owned by the Israeli Government and State. Proving that they actually have vested interests in Israel and continuing the genocide.

It is ludicrous to witness, the political and media condemnation of a few words chanted at a music festival while Palestinians waiting in a line for aid, starving people who’ve been herded into this state of the queuing dead, are massacred by IDF. These people dead on their feet, seeking aid, did not pose a threat, and yet the IDF, an armed force just opened fire on them because they could. Because they know, no one is trying to stop them. No one is condemning their actions. The world is turning a blind eye to their war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Anyone opposing their horrendous crimes are called anti-semitic and are cancelled, condemned, silenced.

Bob Vylan, facing a criminal investigation have also been dropped but their record company and are on a travel ban to USA. Swift and sharp punishment for expressing their desire to see a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. Mass disgust across the country and further afield about a chant, but where is the mass disgust and action against the mass extermination of a people? The Palestinians, the people of Gaza.

“It’s a Killing Field”, reported by Nir Hasson, Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg within Haaretz, details how IDF soldiers were ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid. Unarmed people are treated like a hostile force and just shot and killed. Deliberately. Bullets is the IDF form of communication. Not chants, bullets. Where is the condemnation of this? Where is the Parliamentary emergency meeting to discuss this deliberate killing of human life, that is genocide, that are war crimes? None but there is one about Bob Vylan, and Lisa Nandy, British Labour Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024, standing up in Parliament, in solemn tones criticising the BBC the Glastonbury broadcast and Bob Vylan for the chanting. Claiming her moment in the limelight, making a performance, Nandy condemned the “appalling and unacceptable scenes” at Glastonbury and said the government would not tolerate antisemitism. But the government tolerates genocide. FACT.

I could go on as I’m sick and tired of hearing when someone criticises IDF, and the Israeli state of murdering Palestinians and claiming Gaze, the whole state, from river to sea, that this is being anti-semitic. This is just another tactic used for shutting people up. As when people are criticising the genocide of Palestinians and the stealing of their homeland, they are not saying they hate Jews or the Jewish people. They are saying that the massacre of a people is wrong. The IDF as an armed force is committing genocide. That is what is being condemned, criticised and left to the general public around the world to fight against as the Western countries are doing nothing to stop it.

Conflating these criticisms with Jewish people , calling it anti-semitic is like using a get out of jail free card on repeat. It’s not the same thing. And I would argue that if the chant, ‘death, death to the IDF’, is anti-semitic and hate speech inciting violence, what/who is it killing IDF? A chant, some words at Glastonbury or the Israeli government sending the IDF into war, ordering them to kill unarmed people seeking aid? Tell me which one is a whitewashing of crimes against humanity? The chant is not a chant of hate for Jewish people. The chant is anger at the genocidal actions of a genocidal army, the IDF, who are beginning to ask themselves if this was is just, and what is the humanitarian price the Gazan population paying for this war?